Sister Gale in the Greece Region of the Adriatic South Mission

An eternity to prepare for my mission, an eternity to reflect, but only 18 months to live it. I can't even try to express in words what my mission means because it's everything to me. I've come to learn so much more the reality of God's love, the enabling joy the Atonement of Jesus Christ has as we utilize it in our everyday lives, the power of the Book of Mormon, and SO MUCH MORE. I am so grateful he trusts me enough to still allow me to be serving him at this special time. Over 30,000 missionaries have been sent home because of COVID-19. I am lucky enough to stay. It has not been easy but why should it be? It's the Lord's work, there is always opposition, but he is on our side and the work will prevail.  All the teary goodbyes were rough but I couldn't have imagined a better final week in Thessaloniki. It has definitely become my 2nd home as I've spent more than half of my time in the field here! I don't like to think of myself as much of a cryer b...

We are down to 9 days people! 9 days until I bid farewell to the most unpredictable, joy filled months of my life thus far. We've got a busy week ahead of us as we say our final goodbyes to our wonderful Thessaloniki members and go back to Athens for our last few days.  2 noteworthy experiences for ya... 1) We ran into a guy from Canada this who is literally walking to Jerusalem! He says he has been called as a Pilgrim  and is retracing the steps of Christ. He began his journey 6 months ago in France and is working his way down to the Holy land as God directs him. Even was out in the wild for exactly 40 days and testified to us of Christ carrying him through that intense period. He has learned through this experience the reality of our Savior's individual love for us. Cool thing is he met the missionaries in Spain and had a really good conversation as well as remembered the Joseph Smith Restoration movie. So he already recognized who we were and had a deep appreciation and res...

I got to see my recent converts Kourosh and Nafas again! Their 3 kiddos are still just as cute as I last remembered too. We got to tell them it was their turn to attend church next week and they were pretty happy about that. It's so weird to think some people haven't had the sacrament for months. And yet I haven't gone a week without it this whole Corona time. Right now our church meeting is limited to 11 people so 1 set of elders goes with a set group of members that change every week. The other set comes to our place and we watch the Athens online church, have the sacrament, and then have lunch all together. And it'll most likely be the Sunday routine the rest of the transfer as far as it looks.  We still aren't allowed to do any street contacting which hasn't been too great because generally that's how we would find new people to teach. But in our weekly beach cleaning we can talk to people who approach us and believe it or not there are a good amount tha...

Guess who is back in Thessaloniki... yet again?! 3rd times the charm right?? So yeah, didn't see that one coming in the slightest since transfers already happened 2 weeks ago and I was supposedly gonna be finishing my mission in Athens. BUT I suppose this is yet another testament to me that the Lord is in charge and He's always got bigger and better plans ahead. Best part about this unexpected transfer call was that Sister Kidd was going with me! It woulda been a lot harder for me to leave Athens if I had to leave her behind too. GOD KNOWS US YOU GUYS!  Also, I'm in a trio again, this time with Sister Edwards! My MTC companion :) looks like we'll be getting to start and finish this whole thing together! So I'll get to show both Sister Kidd and Edwards the ins and outs of Thess since both of them are new to the area.  Being back has actually been really really great. Man I have missed these members so much! I've been in contact with them since being in Ath...

Man we are just a cop magnet! 6 of our elders were helping us clean out our old apartment when the landlord living below us called the cops! Best way go describe him is a psycho super hairy santa clause gone wrong. Yeah that's a pretty accurate description. He accused us of all living in the apartment even tho there were only suppose to be 2 people according to the contract. The cops asked if we were living with our boyfriends, motioning to 2 of the elders standing on our balcony still upstairs. Ha. Not. Also thought we were partying. I mean hey, they can go ahead and look what we got hiding up there and will find the 72 liters of waters we have to have for emergencies. Quite the party right?! We all laughed because everything we were being accused of was just wild from what was actually going on. We explained the situation and the cops were confused why they were even called. They explained to our landlord yet again that of course the girls would ask their friends for help to...

I'M TRAINING SISTER KIDD! I was actually supposed to train her back in March but then the blessed Corona hit us. But she's finally here! She's my 3rd English companion now and we've hit it off, it's been a great time! :))) After a crazy Tuesday of trying to fly missionaries back and forth between Cyprus, I ended up having 2 new missionaries with me for a day since Sister Grant ended up not being allowed to fly to Cyprus. That same morning Sister Mathis' flight home to the states got canceled and it was just a bunch of craziness all in all. But President Anderson is a miracle worker and just doesn't give up on anything. As he put it, "I'm not too happy with the church travel agency and I'm pretty sure they're not so happy with me." In the end Prez worked his magic and everyone got where they needed to! I promised the 2 new sisters I had with me that this wasn't what normal missionary work is like haha, they just came at a really wi...